KCBS
KCBS-TV is a CBS owned-and-operated television station located in Los Angeles, California, United States. KCBS-TV is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of CBS Corporation as part of a duopoly with independent station KCAL-TV (channel 9). The two stations share offices and studio facilities inside CBS Studio Center in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, and KCBS-TV's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson. In the few areas of the western United States where a CBS station is not receivable over-the-air, KCBS-TV is available on satellite television through DirecTV. History Early years KCBS-TV is one of the oldest television stations in the world. It was signed on by Don Lee Broadcasting, which owned a chain of radio stations on the Pacific Coast, and was first licensed by the Federal Radio Commission, forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission as experimental television station W6XAO in June 1931. The station went on the air on December 23, 1931, and by March 1933 was broadcasting programming one hour each day only on Monday through Saturdays. The station used a mechanical camera which broadcast only film footage in an 80-line image, but demonstrated all-electronic receivers as early as 1932. It went off the air in 1935, and then reappeared using an improved mechanical camera producing a 300-line image for a month-long demonstration in June 1936. By August 1937, W6XAO had programming on the air six days each week. Live programming started in April 1938. By 1939, now operating with a fully electronic system with the image improved to 441 lines and studios and transmitter on Mount Lee, an optimistic estimate of the station's viewership was 1,500 people in a few hundred homes. Many of the receiver sets were built by television hobbyists, though commercially made sets were available in Los Angeles. The station's six-day weekly schedule consisted of live talent four nights, and film two nights. By 1942, there were an estimated 400–500 television sets in the Los Angeles area, with Don Lee Broadcasting placing television receivers at the following public places: Wilshire Brown Derby, Kiefer's Pine Knot Drive-In, Vine St. Brown Derby, Griffith Planetarium, Miramar Hotel (Santa Monica), Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and The Town House on Wilshire Blvd. During World War II, programming was reduced to three hours, every other Monday. The station's frequency was switched from Channel 1 to Channel 2 in March 1946 when the FCC decided to reserve Channel 1 for low-power community television stations, before eliminating it completely. The station was granted a commercial license (the second in California, behind KTLA) as KTSL on May 6, 1948, and was named for Thomas S. Lee, the son of Don Lee. The station became affiliated with the DuMont Television Network later that year. KTSL also launched Peter Potter's Jukebox Jury that year, a musical/quiz series that began to be broadcast nationally during the 1953–1954 season on ABC. Many later well-known entertainers appeared on the program to judge the latest releases from the recording companies. CBS acquisition Starting in 1949, CBS had been affiliated with KTTV (channel 11, now a Fox owned-and-operated station), a station in which the network held a 49% minority ownership stake. Don Lee's broadcasting interests were placed for sale in 1950 following the death of Thomas S. Lee. General Tire and Rubber agreed to purchase all of Don Lee's stations, the centerpiece being KHJ radio, but chose to spin-off KTSL to CBS. Susbsquently CBS sold its share in KTTV to the station's majority partner, the Los Angeles Times, and all CBS programming moved to KTSL on January 1, 1951. On October 28, 1951, KTSL changed its callsign to KNXT (presumably meaning "KNX Television") to coincide with CBS' Los Angeles radio outlet, KNX (1070 AM). The station also moved its transmitter from Mount Lee, where it had been based since its experimental days, to Mount Wilson. In 1956, CBS began broadcasting NFL games, and with it, the Los Angeles Rams had their games aired on Channel 2. This alliance would continue through the 1993 season, when Fox took over the rights to broadcast NFC games, which led to KTTV being the new home station for one season in 1994, before the Rams moved to St. Louis. With the Rams' return to Los Angeles in 2016, Channel 2 will air games in which the Rams play host to an AFC opponent, and any Thursday Night or cross-flexed games aired by CBS. It will also air all Rams preseason games. In 2017, the station became the unofficial "home" station of the NFL's Chargers franchise, which announced on January 12, 2017 that it had exercised an option it was allotted a year to exercise to leave its longtime home of San Diego and join the Rams in Los Angeles; the newly relocated and rechristened Los Angeles Chargers are part of the AFC, and therefore most of their games (the vast majority of road games, home games vs. AFC opponents and select games crossflexed from Fox) are carried by CBS. Because Los Angeles was previously a secondary market of the Chargers during their time in San Diego, the station was already under requirement to carry the team's road games. As KCBS-TV On April 2, 1984 at 12:00 am, KNXT changed its call letters to the present KCBS-TV. In 1997, it adopted the "CBS2" moniker for its on-air image, following the lead of its sister stations in Chicago and New York City. For a time during the 1980s and 1990s, KNXT/KCBS-TV had several locally produced programs such as "2 on the Town," a local show similar to Evening Magazine and KABC-TV's Eye on L.A., and KidQuiz, a Saturday morning children's game show hosted by longtime weathercaster Maclovio Perez (for a time in the mid-2000s, its sister station KCAL-TV had broadcast a show called 9 on the Town). During the period, Channel 2 had frequently changed formats to styles that often became unsuccessful and even controversial. In September 1986, Channel 2 implemented a news-wheel format with each half-hour of news devoted to certain topics and themes (for example, there was entertainment and lifestyle news early on and harder news stories later in the program); this format was heavily panned by critics and audiences alike, and was dropped after only a month. The late 1980s and early 1990s brought to KCBS the Action News format, in which the station's newscast adopted a tabloid-style format; the format grated on the news staff, which circulated a memo that resulted in the firing of news director John Lippmann in 1993. Lippmann was heavily criticized by many,who? and reportedly had many confrontations with news staff, notably a shoving match between him and anchor Michael Tuck. The station's ratings quickly declined. CBS management, highly embarrassed at KCBS-TV's subpar performance, responded by bringing in Bill Applegate as general manager. Applegate had previously served as general manager at Chicago sister station WBBM-TV, and was employed at that station as a reporter in the early 1970s. While Applegate had been criticized for making WBBM-TV's newscasts flashier than they had been previously, he set about toning down the format of KCBS-TV's newscasts. One of his strategies involved bringing in popular anchors and reporters from other Los Angeles area stations including Jerry Dunphy, who returned to channel 2 two decades after his earlier firing from the station (Dunphy went on to anchor at KABC-TV and KCAL-TV, both of whom achieved high ratings for their newscasts during each of Dunphy's stints). Also joining alongside Dunphy were colleagues Ann Martin, Dr. George Fischbeck, Paul Dandridge and Mark Coogan from KABC-TV, and Larry Carroll (who worked with Dunphy at KABC and KCAL); KNBC's Linda Alvarez also joined the team. The station's ratings improved, but Applegate eventually became a casualty of CBS' merger with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1996; Applegate had bickered with Westinghouse over the station's syndicated programming not long after he had arrived. Westinghouse executives never forgot this, and Applegate was one of the first executives to be let go. Channel 2's momentum ground to a halt, and it soon dropped into last place. The Action News branding was dropped in 1997 and the station's newscasts were renamed to the present CBS 2 News. That year, Dunphy returned to KCAL. In 2002, KCBS-TV became a sister station to KCAL-TV after the latter was purchased by Viacom from Young Broadcasting. KCBS-TV began making another attempt to get out of the ratings basement at the start of the 21st century. Kent Shocknek, former anchor of KNBC's Today in L.A., joined KCBS to become its morning co-anchor in 2000. The station then hired longtime KABC anchor Harold Greene in 2001 as anchor of its 5 pm and 11 p.m. newscasts. The following year, Greene was joined by his former partner at KABC, Laura Diaz. In 2004, Paul Magers, longtime anchor at KARE in Minneapolis, replaced Greene on the 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts, bumping Greene to the 4 and 6 p.m. programs. The 4 p.m. newscast moved to KCAL-TV with the arrival of Dr. Phil on KCBS in September 2004. At the beginning of 2005, longtime KABC weatherman Johnny Mountain moved to KCBS, surprising many since it appeared that he was planning on retiring from television. At first, it seemed that none of these changes brought KCBS any closer to becoming a factor in the Los Angeles news ratings. However, in April 2006, KCBS grabbed the number 2 spot at 5 p.m. from KABC due to a strong lead-in from Dr. Phil. KCBS shot past both KABC and KNBC to take first place at 11 p.m. for the first time in 30 years. On April 21, 2007, KCBS and KCAL-TV moved from the historic CBS Columbia Square in Hollywood to an all-digital facility at the CBS Studio Center in Studio City. The move marked many changes at KCBS and KCAL-TV, with several news personalities having departed, including David Jackson (who returned to the duopoly after anchoring at KCAL in the early 1990s), Kerry Kilbride, reporter Jay Jackson, Paul Dandridge, Dilva Henry, Linda Alvarez, sports anchor Alan Massengale and Dave Clark (who left for KTVU in Oakland). Both stations also began broadcasting all their local newscasts, sports shows and public affairs programming in high definition, becoming the third and fourth stations in Los Angeles to do so (following KABC-TV in February 2006 and KTLA in January 2007). In addition, KCBS and KCAL-TV now operate in a completely tapeless newsroom. This newsroom is named in honor of the late former anchor of both stations, Jerry Dunphy. The Dunphy Newsroom is also shared with CBS News, operating as its Los Angeles/West Coast bureau. The August 3, 2011 edition of CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley was produced live from the newsroom , being the first CBS national newscast to originate from the Studio City facility. With the move, KTLA and KCET became the only broadcast stations (either in radio or television) in Los Angeles to operate their studios out of Hollywood. On April 1, 2008, the CBS Television Stations division enacted some of the biggest budget cuts in television history as well as staff layoffs across all of its stations. As a result of the budget cuts, roughly 10 to 15 staffers were released by KCBS/KCAL. 6 p.m. anchors Harold Greene and Ann Martin, who both also anchored KCAL-TV's 4 p.m. newscast, chose to retire from television news (Greene and Martin were slated to have their contracts expire in June of that year and were both considered for layoffs). Additionally, longtime KCBS reporter Jennifer Sabih, and reporters Greg Phillips and Jennifer Davis, were let go by the station. NewsCentral era On September 19, 2009, KCBS and KCAL adopted the uniform NewsCentral brand (unrelated to the news organization of the same name formerly operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group). The newscasts were refocused to cover more community news, including stories from outlying communities. Local news headlines from the Los Angeles Newspaper Group and other MediaNews Group newspapers were shown on a news ticker, "street team" submissions of video and photos from viewers were featured, reporters ended stories with NewsCentral rather than the individual station brands, and microphone flags and news vehicles were branded to show both stations' logos at once (the KCBS and KCAL logos were previously displayed on alternating sides). The newscasts claimed that it produced more local news than any other television station in the United States, with reporters in Ventura County, the Inland Empire and Orange County, and the only Los Angeles television station with two helicopters (subcontracted to Angel City Air, owned by reporter Larry Welk). Ed Asner introduced the new newscast. CBS denied that the move was made in response to other stations pooling news gathering resources. Ratings under the new format during the November 2009 sweeps showed KCBS lagging behind KABC-TV and KNBC in crucial timeslots. On December 10, 2009, Patrick McClenehan resigned after one year as president of KCBS/KCAL and was replaced by Steve Mauldin, who had overseen the CBS-owned duopoly in Dallas-Fort Worth. That week, the NewsCentral brand was rescinded, restoring the CBS 2 News and KCAL 9 News identities. The NewsCentral graphics, microphone flags and logos were retained in the interim, though on-air talent no longer referred to the NewsCentral brand. By spring 2010, the new management had made significant changes to KCBS's news operation. Veteran forecaster Johnny Mountain retired and was replaced by sister KCAL's Jackie Johnson; joining anchor Paul Magers on the lead newscasts was KCAL veteran Pat Harvey. The morning broadcast was also revamped, and the newly renamed "CBS 2 News" was given new graphic design and theme music by Frank Gari based on the longstanding ten-note logo originally written by Dick Marx and previously used by KCBS on-and-off since the 1970s. Subchannels On October 21, 2014, CBS and Weigel Broadcasting announced the launch of a new digital subchannel service called Decades, scheduled to launch on all CBS-owned stations on May 25, 2015, including on KCBS-TV on channel 2.2. On September 3, 2018, Decades was replaced on 2.2 by Start TV with Decades moving to Weigel's KAZA-DT2. Category:CBS affiliated stations Category:Channel 2 Category:1948 Category:Television channels and stations established in 1948 Category:Los Angeles Category:California Category:CBS Corporation Category:VHF Category:Former DuMont Affiliates Category:Former NTA Film Network affiliates Category:CBS California Category:Start TV Affiliates Category:Dabl Affiliates